A FORMER Suffolk Businessman has been told to pay the Courts the £78,000 he has owed for four years, or face jail. Neil Cattermole was fined more than £13,000 and told to pay almost £65,000 in compensation by Ipswich Crown Court in June 2004 for failing to account for a substantial loss of property (around £1 million) while he was bankrupt.

A FORMER Suffolk Businessman has been told to pay the Courts the £78,000 he has owed for four years, or face jail. Neil Cattermole was fined more than £13,000 and told to pay almost £65,000 in compensation by Ipswich Crown Court in June 2004 for failing to account for a substantial loss of property (around £1 million) while he was bankrupt.

Magistrates heard that the 43-year-old former Director of the Construction Company Evolution Enterprises was given two years to pay, and warned he would go to prison for 18 months if he failed.

Cattermole, of Goldcrest Road, Ipswich, told South East Suffolk Magistrates that at the time of the Court hearing he had £9,000 in savings, was earning £4,000 per month, had £60,000 equity at Goldcrest Road, and his wife had £88,000 equity in a house in Stone Lodge Lane, Ipswich, where the couple were living at the time with their five children.

He said he planned to sell his wife's house towards the end of the two year period to pay the Courts the full amount. However, a month before this was due to happen, he said he was involved in a car accident and was attacked by five men which resulted in his leg being broken in two places.

He said “the Stone Lodge Lane property was sold in September 2006, and some of the proceeds went on my wife's financial commitments and at the time the money was used to look after myself and my family to avoid claiming benefits because I couldn't work because of the accident”.

Cattermole said he and his family were now in receipt of income support and child tax credits because he still could not work due to complications with his injuries, and all the profits from the sale of his wife's house had been used up. He told Magistrates his father had recently died and left half of his and his wife's £400,000 house to him.

Cattermole said his 64-year-old mother had agreed to raise the funds to pay the Court in full within three months. Magistrates told Cattermole to pay £4,500 within a week and the outstanding amount within three months or face 18 months in prison.

Cattermole was told if it was not for his leg injury and consequential disability he would have been jailed immediately.